All That Matters
by Shorty140
Summary: A story I wrote in one of my not better moods. Sure, we're always hearing about Chris's father, but what about her dearly departed mother? Incest not included. (A work in progress, so all reveiws are accepted)


****

Disclaimer: One second.

"Hey Mom! Do I own Suikoden?"

"I'm surprised you even know what you have anymore, since everything's a freakin' mess in your room."

That's such a total lie-- wait. She's right. Well, in any case, I don't own Suikoden.

~~~

A/N: Assuming Chris was seven when Wyatt went missing, she's, like, twelve in this. I'm not sure when her mother died or whatever, so bear with me. This is a (fairly) rough draft.

And she's a bit (or a lot, take your pick) out of character since she's basically still a kid, so don't get your tights in a bunch.

It's only slightly depressing, so if your not into being existential and asking what the meaning of life is... this is right up your alley.

~~~ 

Chris's shoes sloshed in a freezing puddle of rain, her clothes plastered to her body as she walked home from her lessons. It had been a terrible day; all the girls had been practicing etiquette and such, and the teacher had made it known to all when Chris had used the wrong fork or when she forgot to place one ankle behind the other to refrain from nudging the person across the table from you in the leg. It was awfully embarrassing, especially when the other girls had placed their white-lace gloved hands over their ruby-lacquered lips and stifled amused chortles. Just thinking about it made her hot with humiliation. 

After lessons, she usually would go to the stables, but the heavy rain had made that prospect entirely useless. Even so, all she wanted to do was get home and warm herself by the fire.

Although lately home hadn't been very pleasant. When her father disappeared five years ago, it had been similar, but when he had been officially announced as 'dead' last year, everything had fallen apart. Her mother Anna had locked herself away, slipping into her own world to escape from reality, while her family received unwanted pity from every Tom, Dick and Harry that happened by their estate. 

In truth, Wyatt Lightfellow wasn't surely dead. He had never been found and merely was written off as 'missing in action' for a long while. But when even finding his armor and sword had become a slim chance at best, nobody questioned the facts anymore. Wyatt was gone.

Chris shook her head before she could think about it too much. She was in a bitter mood as it was--the last thing she needed to think about was her stranger of a mother and dead father.

~~~

The butler took the girl's coat with solemn hands. "Madame, your mother fell ill this morning."

"Has she?" Chris sighed, although it wasn't anything new to her. Anna was slipping further and further away, and Chris knew she was powerless to stop it. No matter how hard she tried, she realized her family wasn't just a ripped piece of what had once been a beautiful tapestry; the parts could not be sewed back together so easily. "Has the doctor come?"

The butler looked away for a second. "Well...yes."

"What did he say?"

The second she said those words, she regretted them. He turned away to hang her coat, pulling the wrinkles out of the fabric expertly. "He...well--"

"What did he say?" she repeated, her heart pounding. "She's all right, isn't she? She was just a bit unwell."

"Madame." He faced her again, his mouth in a thin line that looked as though he was about to say something incredibly condescending. "Don't worry yourself about it. In the years I have served this household, Madame Lightfellow has always been strong no matter the circumstances."

Chris inhaled precariously, wanting to believe him. It would be so much easier if she could find it in her heart to consider that her mother could beat her numbing mind. But, to be totally practical, it wasn't as though things would ever change over night. Even if her father returned, would Anna recognize him? She had, by all means, gone insane.

"Tell me the truth," Chris prodded, trying to mask her anxiety. "What did he say?"

"Madame..."

"I...I deserve to know. She was... she is my mother." It was a slip of the tongue that had been completely unintentional. It was true, the body of the woman was Chris's mother, even though it was slowly tripping into its own decay. But the spirit of her mother--the maternal affection she had for Chris that had been the child's single console when Wyatt was said to be deceased--had disappeared, replaced by a hollowed form that was just a shadow of her mother. Even though they were still mother and daughter, in all reality Anna had already died. Since realizing this, Chris hadn't made much of an effort to see her mother.

The butler scratched a bit of stubble on his chin, hoping somehow it would stall his reply long enough for Chris to loose interest, as if it were a trivial question about where he had placed her gloves. "She barely can familiarize anyone. She's..."

And that was it. Chris could barely focus on his words, as much as she wanted to. She struggled to keep her voice low and mind from being too alarmed. "I'm going to see her."

"Miss, she's in a very fragile state of mind. Maybe it would be best to--"

Chris was already running up the stairs in panic, as though she had a limited time amount to see Anna. The butler called after her to stop before she hurt herself, but Chris was already too far away to heed his warning. She sprinted down the red-carpeted halls, feeling pieces of her shoulder-blade length silver hair falling out of its bun and pushing it behind her ear, blowing her wispy bangs out of the face. The blood was rushing to her cheeks and her eyes felt strained and tired all of a sudden, but it didn't seem to matter.

Her scuffed boots caught on a snag in the rug. In a not-so graceful tumble, she fell on her knees and huffed with difficulty. Leaning against the wall, she caught her breath and brought her knees under her chin. Right in front of Chris was the door to her parent's room, opened just a tiny crack. From inside, there was silence. Absolute, dead silence.

Chris swallowed nervously, bringing herself to her feet and running a hand quickly over her face before shakily reaching for the door knob. It seemed icy-cold, as though it hadn't been touched in a year's time.

Time slowed as the door eased open and she took in what had always been a common sight to her: her father's coat slung over the chair, a dog-eared book of his half-opened on a beautifully glossy blond-wood table, like her father was still there. Anna had refused to move a thing of Wyatt's until he returned. The yellow silk upholstery looked faded in the candlelight, and the magnificent four-poster bed was collecting dust, along with the grand piano carved from redwood. The ivory keys were smothered with grime. It was like walking into an attic after ten years and rediscovering all of the memories you had since shut away. It was bitter and nostalgic, a reminder of how things had changed so drastically, so quickly.

And by the window, her elbows supported on the ledge and green silk nightgown swishing on the dusty wood-panel floor as she jiggled her foot, was Anna Lightfellow. Chris stared at her mother's profile for a moment, watching her long eyelashes waver as Anna turned around in her chair, a faint smile plastered on her face.

"Wyatt? Is that you, darling?" Her voice was tinny and weak, and was by all means the voice of a stranger.

Chris was quiet for a minute, waiting for Anna to recognize her as her daughter and correct herself. But Anna just stared at her hopefully, her faded blue eyes lit with a distant glisten of happiness.

Chris didn't have the heart to tell her mother that father wasn't there. Or rather, she had too much heart. Her mother looked so fragile and distant, at the same time she looked incredibly beautiful. Her long, pale blond hair was wound into a bun atop her head, and her light skin glowed with a translucent sheen. And her smile--as weak and outlying as it was, it was still a smile. Her mother looked truthfully happy for once. It would be too painful to see her face crumple into despair as it had when the messenger came on that fateful day when her father was declared officially dead. 

"...Yes," Chris started weakly, at a loss for words. "Yes... dear. It's me."

Anna slowly stood up, clutching the wall for support. It was as if she was sleep-walking, and in truth, she probably was. She didn't see things as they were anymore. Despair and isolation had manipulated her mind into living in its own world, because she couldn't cope with loosing Wyatt. And as much as it had deepened the wound in Chris's heart to not only have lost her father, but her mother as well, it was sometimes comforting to know that in Anna's world, everything was idyllic.

"I've been waiting for so long," Anna cooed with limpid eyes. 

Chris caught her own reflection in the gold-gilded mirror. The room was flanked by a single, two foot tall white candle, and the dim light it produced hid her lips and the patrician curve of her nose, similar to Anna's. All that was visible was the shape of her hair--messy and scruffy from running--and her navy-blue eyes, which had always been said to be the twin pair to her father's. In her white button-down school shirt and brown boots, and with Anna's smoke-screened perception, it was true. She looked a bit like her father.

"I'm sorry," Chris replied earnestly. And she was, for not visiting her mother sooner. She had always planned on talking to Anna, but being with her mother was a constant reminder of how she was essentially parentless. About how her mother was slowly and painfully dying by her own disease.

"There's no need for apologies." Anna glided gradually over to Chris, wrapping her arms around her. "I'd still wait for you."

"But still..." Chris trailed off, hugging her mother back before Anna stepped away. "I'm sorry. For staying away because I couldn't deal with my own pain. For letting you become this." Her throat felt tight and unnatural as she tried endlessly to identify her mother in some sort of arc or crevice in Anna's face, but it was almost unrecognizable. She looked like a sunken version of her mother and nothing more.

Anna yawned softly, her hands shaking. "I'm very tired. I haven't slept a moment since you left." She sat back down in the chair, turning around and looking out the window. "I could tell you were out there. The rain told me so." At the same time that her mother's rambling made no sense whatsoever, it seemed to Chris to be an extraordinarily fitting statement. There was something very low and poetic about the way Anna had said it. Anna had no sense of time; she had said it in a manner that made it seem as though she had only been waiting for Wyatt for one day as oppose to five years. An everlasting day.

Chris plucked a pin out of her mother's hair, and then another, until in one, final cascade, it all dropped down her back in a golden flounce. "I couldn't stay away forever. Even though I wanted to, you're still my mo--" Chris stopped herself instantly, remembering she was, in Anna's eyes, Wyatt. "...I love you, and I apologize because I haven't told you so until this moment."

Anna looked back at Chris, her hollow cheeks glowing pink. "I've been waiting for what seems like years to hear those words again." As she rose from her chair, Anna stumbled weakly.

Chris took her mother's arm in her own. "I've got you."

Anna rested her head on Chris's shoulder, inhaling gently as she was guided to her bed. "I know you do."

Chris turned the fluffy sheets down, helping her limp mother into bed with as much care as she would've handled a porcelain doll. 

"You should go see Chris," Anna murmured delicately. "I can tell she misses you terribly, though she's been very mature about it. She becomes more like you everyday. She's been so strong for me... I'm so proud of her."

Chris fought back the tears burning her eyes. For a brief moment, her true mother had surfaced, and even if Anna was submerged yet again into her dream world, the words lingered in her ears. "She misses you, also."

Cold sweat was beading on Anna's forehead, and as she closed her eyes, Chris saw a tear roll down her face, dripping off her chin and onto the pillow. "I wish she could know how much I love her..."

"She does." Chris took her mother's hand, and Anna squeezed it tightly as the color faded from her face. "But please, sleep now. Don't worry yourself with..."

Her mother's clench was growing tighter as pain convulsed her body and she was thrown into a fit of coughing and wheezing. "Thank you, love. I'm dreadfully tired." Her eyes fluttered open for a second, flitting to meet Chris's gaze unfocusedly before closing them again. "All that matters is that you're all right," she said in a baby-soft whisper.

Chris leaned over, kissing mother gently on the cheek as she felt the grip on her hand loosen, before coming completely limp. Anna's skin was deathly cold and as white as ivory, her gentle breathing had ceased, and her fair hair fanned out on the pillow like a princess. Chris didn't dare move a thing on her mother as she stepped back, and strangely enough, the girl managed a small, faded smile.

Was she smiling because she had been able to make her mother happy in her last moments? Was it because she had been able to put her own conscience to rest?

Or maybe it was a sad smile, because she knew now that even if watching her mother slowly slip into psychosis had been awful, it was over. Her mother's pain was over.

She put a hand over her heart and bowed her head before blowing out the candle, the whole room lapsing into darkness. Willing herself not to cry because, as Anna had said in her moment of returning from her insanity, Chris knew she had to remain strong. There was no sound other than the pounding rain as she backed out of the room, closing the door behind her as quietly as she could as though slamming it would disrupt her mother's eternal sleep.

Chris sank back against the wall in the corridor, her shoulders hunched and hands tied in a knot as she drowned herself in thought and her mother's words.

__

All that matters is...

She looked at her hands, still cold from her mother's skin.

It all matters.


End file.
